NYC Rife with Fish Fraud: Report

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Fish being sold in New York City shops and restaurants are
frequently mislabeled, a new report says.

For consumers, this means the wild
salmon you ordered might actually be
farm-raised, and more troubling, the tilefish you were
avoiding because of its high mercury content might end up on your
plate anyway, disguised as red snapper.

Between June and September of this year, researchers with
conservation organization Oceana collected 142 samples from 81
retail outlets across New York, mostly in Manhattan. Eighty-nine
of the samples were from grocery stores, 28 were from restaurants
and 25 were from sushi bars.

DNA tests showed that 56 of the samples were mislabeled according
to FDA guidelines, putting the overall fish fraud rate in the
city at 39 percent.

Of the 13 different types of fish studied, tuna was the most
frequently mislabeled, with 17 out of 18 samples found to be
frauds. Oceana officials say fish labeled as "white tuna" was
usually escolar, a snake mackerel that has a toxin, which, when
consumed in more than small amounts, can cause gastrointestinal
problems like diarrhea.

A wide variety of fish was passed off as red snapper, from porgy
to white bass to tilapia. One sham red snapper sample was
actually found to be tilefish, which, because of its high mercury
content, is on the FDA's do-not-eat list for pregnant women,
nursing mothers and young children. Tilefish was also sold as
halibut in another instance, the report says. [ 7
Foods You Can Overdose On ]

Among retailers, 100 percent of sushi bars sampled had sold at
least one mislabeled fish.
The fraud rate at restaurants was 39 percent and 29 percent among
grocery stores, with small markets found to be worse offenders
than national chains.

Mislabeling rips off consumers and could pose health risks to
those with dietary restrictions, Oceana officials say, and it's
not a problem exclusive to New York. Previous studies found that
the rate of fish fraud was 55 percent in Los Angeles, 48 percent
in Boston and 31 percent in Miami.

Moreover, it's not easy to trace where the deception is taking
place along the supply chain.

"As of 2011, the U.S. now imports more than 90 percent of the
seafood consumed in this country," the group wrote in its report.
"With an increasingly complex and obscure seafood supply chain,
plus lagging federal oversight and inspection of rising seafood
imports, it is difficult to identify who along the supply chain
perpetrates the fraud."